LTIMindtree will stop filing fresh H1-B visa applications: CEO Venu Lambu

Venugopal Lambu , CEO and MD, LTIMindtree

LTI Mindtree, one of India's largest IT firms, will halt filing fresh H-1B visas from the next US cycle, opting instead to ramp up local hiring, CEO Venu Lambu told Moneycontrol.

The decision follows the steep hike in H-1B petition fee for large employers by the Trump administration in recent months.

"We are hiring, we are hiring locally, and one of the things that I have made clear is that we are not going to make any new applications on H-1B," Lambu said in an interview last week. "Unless (we) have a strong business case to spend $100,000, we are not going to do that."

He clarified that the move applies only to new petitions in the upcoming H-1B lottery cycle, usually around March to April, and not to renewals of existing visas. To be sure, the fee hike only applies to fresh petitions and not renewals.

"If there is a change in rules, we will reconsider," Lambu added. He said LTIMindtree typically files a very small number of new H-1B applications in a year.

For the 2025 fiscal (as on June 30, 2025), India’s sixth-largest IT firm by revenue had 1,807 H1-B visa approvals, according to the USCIS website.

At present, about 4,000 of LTIMindtree's over 86,000 employees are in the US on H-1B visas, he said.

Top Indian IT services companies are increasingly reducing their reliance on H-1B visas, as US President Donald Trump raised the visa fee to $100,000 on September 20.

Also read: H-1B fee hike unlikely to impact Indian IT as top firms reduce dependency

On-site model to pivot to local hiring, not subcontractors

Lambu said the impact on LTIMindtree's onsite delivery model will be limited because the company has already reduced its dependence on H-1B over the last few years and built a strong local hiring engine in the US.

"In the short term, since we already reduced the dependence on H-1B and we had machinery in place to do the onsite hiring," he said, adding that not all onsite positions are filled through subcontractors. "We have them as our employees, as full-time employees."

When asked how LTIMindtree will respond if clients insist on more people on-site in the US, Lambu said the company will tap its existing base in the country and continue to hire locally.

"We will figure out other ways; otherwise, we have a lot of good population already in the US, and we will have them in the US," he said.

Lambu said that across Indian IT, the structural dependence on H-1B visas has already come down over five years as companies have built larger local workforces in client markets and grown offshore and GCC (Global Capability Centres) models. "Interestingly, all the big techs are now expanding in India, so all of them have opened offices.”

Also read: Indian IT cuts H-1B visa use by 56% in 8 years; US Big Tech emerges top sponsor

Nonlinear growth bolsters the shift

Lambu linked the decision to avoid new H-1B filings to a broader push toward nonlinear growth, where revenue rises faster than headcount.

"If you look at our first half (H1FY26), we added $64 million of incremental revenue," he said.

Also read: Why ‘revenue per employee’ misleads on profitability in Indian IT in the age of AI

Looking ahead over a five-year horizon, he said LTIMindtree is planning for revenue to almost double, without a proportional increase in workforce. "If we are growing 2X over the next five years or so, you should grow probably at 1.2X or 1.3X of your headcount," he said.

That shift, combined with AI-led productivity, GCC as a service, and higher onshore hiring, reduces the need to rely on fresh H-1B petitions as a lever for growth.

Also read: LTIMindtree CEO Venu Lambu sees stronger growth ahead, expects profit margins to improve

H1-B Dependency Down

At a time when the H-1B visa is under attack in the US for snatching away American jobs, data reveals that Indian IT services firms have sharply reduced their reliance on the programme over the past eight years, even as American technology giants have become its largest users.

Approved H-1B petitions for initial employment from the top seven Indian IT firms fell 56 percent to 6,700 in FY2023 from about 15,100 in FY2015, according to data from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP).

Also read: Top 5 Indian IT companies have less than 50% dependency on H-1B visas

One large Indian IT services company, once the top H-1B sponsor among its peers, recorded a 75 percent drop in approvals over this period.

On the other hand, the top five American firms together secured nearly 28,000 H-1B visa approvals in FY2024. And in FY2025, a leading e-commerce company again topped the list with about 10,000 approvals.

Indian IT companies now employ over 50 percent local staff in their US operations, reducing visa dependency further. This push for local recruitment, spending on AI and upskilling, and adjustments to changing policy regimes have necessitated Indian service providers to balance regulatory risk with operational agility.

Also read: Change in wage hike cycle has nothing to do with the margins or shareholder interest: LTIMindtree CEO